Mexican authorities have arrested the alleged leader of the Zetas drug cartel — long one of the country’s most powerful and notoriously brutal criminal groups.

Jose Maria Guizar Valencia, who is accused of overseeing an organization that traffics thousands of pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine to the United States each year, was nabbed Thursday while entering a hotel in a fashionable neighborhood in Mexico City, authorities said Friday.

Mexico (MX) is estimated to have a population of 122.3 million with a growth rate during 2010-2015 of 1.4% pa.At the same rate of change, in five years' time its population will increase by 8.8 million.